


white orchids

by tsukuyo (akashton)



Category: Gintama
Genre: M/M, Model/Photographer AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3976555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akashton/pseuds/tsukuyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which gintoki bleeds when he smiles and toushirou just wants to be able to laugh with him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	white orchids

**Author's Note:**

> hijikata toushirou wanted to love him.
> 
> sakata gintoki wanted to deserve his love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

_go down_

 

hijikata toushirou presses the button on the elevator with salty lips, a heart he can't carry anymore and a camera hung onto his neck, ridden with stains from a woman who didn't love him. he was never one to be optimistic, not when the bruises on his chest make it hard for him to breathe; not when the cracks on his shield makes it hard for him to stand- especially not when he finds himself coming face to face with sakata gintoki after the dreary ping of the elevator, the supermodel who had taken over the world in just one year.

and also, an old childhood friend.

a shutter sound emits throughout the empty floor number twenty three of the london avenue and a flash that stains the mirrors of the elevator like the profanity toushirou mutters in.

"i would've rather you not taken the picture," the words fall into the air amidst the repetitive sounds of numbers descending, and his voice sounds like honey; something too sweet of a man who could kill with just his looks.

toushirou doesn't reply.

"are you here for the fashion show?" the man asks, words coiling around a lemon drop, natural rouge painted perfectly on his cheeks, lips bitten with something reminiscent to the skies of mars and red eyes that remind toushirou of the red roses left rotting by her room, along with her lungs.

toushirou doesn't look to him, and let's out a low hum as he fiddles with the picture on his camera, framed by his shaking fingers.

the elevator opens, and as the two part ways, gintoki calls his last name, four syllables that fall apart in the air like the four ticks of a grandfather clock and like the four freckles spread across gintoki's bare, pale collarbones.

toushirou turns around with dead eyes, along with the faint sweetness of a cough sweet melting in his tongue when he waits for the man in front of him to say something, hands that beg to tear apart his hair along with the words he's keeping back.

gintoki smiles, crinkles by red eyes that seem to crack along with the dimples by his rose lips, a faint bruise concealed with incessant powder framing upturned eyelashes that curl towards his brows, silver hair that still seems soft, albeit the way he'd run his hands through the strands out of anger, albeit the way his voice seems so cold, and scars that taint the white sleeves of his shirt in crescent moon shaped galaxies and criss cross scabs hidden underneath a watch made of rose gold.

"take a good picture for me."

and the smile fades away as his head turns to the people flocked by his side, and toushirou doesn't realise his mouth is agape until he swallows everything he wanted to say down with the taste of mulled wine.

 

_soft sound_

 

gintoki is flawless along the runaway, with bright lights that flash onto the crevices of his skin to filter out the innocence in a soul he had long since lost. amidst the awes of wonder and fascination, and the camera shutters that zoom onto red eyes so cold to be named beautiful, he loses himself in a kaleidoscopic daze of dreams he can't remember. sakata gintoki is an ethereal being, lost in outer space with his throat choked around words he'd lost the heart to remember. his whole presence is something that can only be described as an illusion, a walking and talking mannequin, a painting. he is so real to a point where he is not, and long since has he disintegrated into a hardened black shell of a man clawing at his bloodied nails to achieve something not even the gods can overcome when he tries to force the shards of hazy memories down a drain that can't filter out the sins trapped inside him. and now, he's lost in a thick of white smoke coiled around his collarbones as he walks to a pair of blue eyes that hurt to look at when all they emit is a warm sympathy he doesn't understand.

he comes to greet toushirou at the end of the runaway, eyes fooled to seem bright, clouded by a mixture of something like dying stars and broken champagne bottles, cigarette embers that are on the verge of burning out and lips flushed with artificially manicured gold dust that taints his skin to seem otherworldly.

through the lens, toushirou sees a man who was never there. a man he he never knew. a man, who's eyes glitter when he meets toushirou.

and he throws toushirou a smile, the crowd erupting in what seems like wonderment, hypnotised by a man who isn't real, intoxicated by the allure that oozes out of him like the blood that fell to his bathroom floor.

toushirou takes a picture.

gintoki meets his eyes, something bursting in his ribcage, blooming onto his throat as his eyes shift towards the lights instead of the face he'd been seeing every time he dared look to the sky; yet all he can feel in his stomach when he sees the show light up at his mere presence is a desire to throw up every dream he had hurled down into the sink that sends even his own blood down along with his nightmares.

as toushirou watches the figure of the man he never knew disappear behind the smoke and he goes back to where he appeared from, like a god summoned in stain glass windows, he can't help but think that even though his smile emanates a type of envious poison to those around him, his eyes- they seemed to be on the verge of tears.

 

_midnight_

 

toushirou forgets he ever met him again until he decides to look through the photos he had taken in the london fashion show two weeks later in an empty apartment with white walls too bare, and nearly drops his camera when he sees him.

it's the one he took on the elevator, before gintoki's flaws were blurred beneath his makeup, and after he had woken up with breath that seemed too minty that morning.

eyelashes that seem to curl upwards naturally and lips that are chapped from the way he bites them when he gets nervous, blood smudged on his sleeves and hair that curls up at the back of his neck, bruises along his bones and eyes that look so melancholic among a light he used to back away from and now relishes in- gintoki looks celestial, even in the dark presence of a man like him.

toushirou deletes the picture.

 

_car lights_

 

it was three months later when they meet again, in the bathroom of some infamous milan fashion show and toushirou's not sure whether to wipe the blood in gintoki's arms or leave him bleeding into the sink.

he drops his camera and catches the man he used to spend summers laughing with as he falls, and his breath hitches when he realises that the cold water he had splashed onto gintoki is too warm compared to his hands.

"get a hold of yourself," toushirou screams, a body limp in his arms and lips that fade to the colour of the dusk sky when they crack.

"ah, fancy seeing you here."

the man murmurs, a smile cut on his face and half lidded eyelids painted with gold dust and charcoal.

toushirou grinds his teeth together and has to swallow back profanities when his fingers tremble at the sight before him, "what have you done to yourself?" and it's not sharp, and it doesn't fall to a retort; instead, the vowels and consonants break at the end, his voice becoming softer as the blood stains his own hands, his throat breaking around those words and his grip falls loose when he hears the man mutter the all too spiteful words.

"oh go on- just take a picture, it'll last longer."

toushirou slaps him.

there's five minutes before the show is due to start and toushirou finds himself wiping away blood on scars that'll never heal and helping the man who had left him waiting by the oak tree for him to come back; and he never did.

sakata gintoki is seen walking into his dressing room with a man who's eyes are reminiscent to cold indigo waves crashing against a shore that can't welcome it.

the stylists pretend they don't see the blood around gintoki's arms or the scars that weave underneath it, like cracks on paint splattered walls. 

toushirou thinks, while he holds gintoki's pretty pink arms in his hands, that gintoki's eyes while he had caught him were the epitome of a catastrophe, a storm bound by chaos and wind that howls up to the heavens in a symphony of calamity.

 

_playing with your hair_

 

toushirou doesn't understand the way gintoki still finds the time to glimmer among the faces of the crowd.

clad in all ivory, a suit made of black, gintoki's red eyes is the only colour shining at the end of the colourless runaway, amidst delicate pale hands tattooed by mauve veins and cheeks that are all to similiar to the milky twilight moon. the people seem entranced by him, the mischievous phantom of a man who walks on bright lights with a smirk painted on the end of his lips, red eyes that remind them of the blood they had shed and red lips that remind them of the roses they had left withering on corpses. 

gintoki is a painting, framed by too bright platinum so you can't see the gaping wounds left on his heart and on his arms, unchangeable with a pulse that's slowing down with every false syllable he sings yet he doesn't seem to have the heart to love himself again; a sealed mouth that only opens to infectious fake laughs and to sip on coffee with too much cream and sugar- a sealed mouth that is soon met with toushirou's as they stumble into his hotel room together.

 

_breathing in your hair_

 

toushirou feels it in the way gintoki's shoulders are too close to his and how his breath smells like peppermint and alcohol.

gintoki's arms are covered in grey sleeves underneath a shelter hiding a grey sky and his hands are pressed against toushirou's neck when he brings their lips together.

toushirou doesn't like this.

"ah-"

lips that crack with every lie he has spat continue to leave stains along toushirou's neck.

"gint-"

moans that emit through the air in clouds of memories he wanted to burn along with the colour of her eyes as she left toushirou to rot in this cataclysm of regrets and ashes of grief that he crushed with his shoes like the cigarette sticks he can't get enough of.

he doesn't like it, but his fingers are tingling with a type of lust he hasn't felt in such a long time, and the only person who can give him this sense of pleasure is from the mysterious half boy who's kissing his lips like he's led witches to believe in luck.

and toushirou is just another fool to fall underneath gintoki's spell.

the spell ends with bit lips from swollen tongues, the spell ends with fingers grating and digging into porcelain skin so fragile underneath the dim lights of a ceiling that was too unfamiliar for the both of them, the spell ends with breathless moans muffled against golden laced pillows and as gintoki comes, hovering above him like a god who had fallen from the heavens, toushirou can't help but feel so translucent in the light that seeps out of gintoki when he murmurs toushirou's last name like it's the antidote.

 

  _go down_

 

morning is just staring at gintoki's creased eyelids and bruised lips in a sunlight he'd never learned to like, wondering how gintoki had become so agitated in a sleep that was meant to rest him.

toushirou gets up from the bed, crinkled shirt half done up with fingers that shake underneath buttons sitting cold against a chest laden with marks left from a man he never even knew, but he stops when gintoki talks.

"do you remember, when we were young, we used to go fishing by the river near that granny's house?"

toushirou doesn't turn to look at him, but he can feel gintoki's eyes on the nape of his neck, tracing letters on his spine that surely whisper out memories coming to the surface.

"yes."

"that river was beautiful, especially in august when it's waters were so clear you could see the fish from far away on the bridge glittering underneath the sun's reflection; and i always thought-"

gintoki pauses, and it's the silence that screams inside his mind, symphonies stopped at a staccato with the crowd waiting with baited breath to once again hear the melodic voices that danced in their ears.

cold arms wrap around toushirou's waist and his breath hitches when gintoki breathes words down his neck along with butterfly kisses that should've meant more.

"and i always thought the river looked too much like your eyes."

 

_soft sound_

 

it's been four months of _this._

nights spent in countless hotel rooms trying to piece together memories they had broken so they don't step on the shards anymore, and mornings filled with flashes and lights from how everyone who meets gintoki is captivated by the way he never shows his full smile in runaways left to sew the gashes veiled underneath his skin.

sometimes both of them are drunk, falling into each other with flushed cheeks and giggles rested on the other's shoulders yet toushirou doesn't realise that each time gintoki cracks into a full fledged laugh with his head thrown back and breathless words amidst his smile, he starts to ache for gintoki more.

sometimes gintoki is bent over the toilet before show with his fingers down his throat and toushirou left speechless from running to find the man who never belonged here to see him uselessly retching out his soul that used to shine silver.

but what scares hijikata toushirou the most is when the lights are dimmed and all that's left in the crowded room are incandescent spotlights and flaring flashes and ear splitting sounds, and he sees gintoki walking with such a credence that toushirou can't help but wonder who's lips he had been kissing the night before.

 

_step into your skin?_

 

toushirou finds more about gintoki as the weeks go by- and sometimes, they're things that he should not know.

 like the way gintoki trembles so violently in his sleep when there are no arms left to comfort him, or when he screams so loud toushirou's fingers bleed when he puts his hands over his mouth, like how gintoki wakes up at two minutes past haunting hour with a cold sweat and an ruinous urge to rip apart the flesh left on his skin, as he can't bear to look at the reflection in his mirror. 

toushirou finds out gintoki is suffering unimaginably, and he can't do anything to stop it.

it's five am in the morning and gintoki's breath is rippling softly against toushirou's bangs as he stares at the silent and sleeping phantom of a man who he's fallen for.

toushirou remembers the last time he had stared at someone who was sleeping had fallen away from his arms forever.

his eyes drift towards gintoki's arms that are thrown loosely across toushirou's waist, and he gazes at the scars for a long time.

toushirou thinks that scars are beautiful and unique but they still emanate this whimsical feeling of tragedy that seems to linger on gintoki's bottom eyelashes, powdered with a soft silver contoured onto his sunken cheekbones. 

they say that there are different ways to say 'i love you'.

"oi...natural perm, stay safe and dream well. i'll be back."

toushirou had whispered, staring at gintoki's lips for too long.

he's not quite sure what they are, and they've never felt the need to define it no matter how many times they talked to each other- knowing that they can't solve each other's problems without ripping another's heart.

but when toushirou is standing on a different, unfamiliar balcony, taking in a scenic view of sunset skies painted on the horizon with a cigarette stuck between his teeth, he can't help but feel that the two are aimlessly licking at each other's wounds knowing they can't fix each other. 

when they were young, they used to talk without any hesitant whimpers or looks held on for a second too long- and toushirou, somewhere deep inside the darts thrown to where his memories lay, hasn't forgiven gintoki for leaving him by an oak tree.

a sense of uncertainty always befalls toushirou after he hears gintoki's moans cascade apart- and his memories of what life was like before they met again are dim, like the man he sees walking beside him with a slight haze around his figure and toushirou sometimes wonders whether his lover is real. 

toushirou closes the door of the hotel room behind him. 

the apartment of 18b back in tokyo is full of countless candids of gintoki strewn over the floor and sheets still unmade, sometimes thrown over each other's tangled bodies when they decide to come back to a home they've never known was like. 

gintoki was always a playful child, pulling toushirou's hair and climbing up trees with a valour that toushirou had admired and the two were known as the mischievous duo of the town that summer they met, and got teared apart.

the walls of apartment 18b now are less empty, paintings of azure and lavender, paintings of snow and silver, paintings of blue eyes and red lips framed with golden dust chosen by gintoki when he realised blank walls were not for his liking.

" _toushirou- i'm going to be gone for a while. but i'll be back soon, okay? wait for me by the oak tree."_

toushirou lays white orchids against her grave, smoke clouding the letters of her name and a smile broken by a single tear as he recalls the last words she said to him.

"i don't want to lose him like i lost you."

 

_i'd rather jump into your bones_

 

they say people take photographs of things they don't want to lose.

sakata gintoki walks up to the man he's loved for so long and takes a picture, breathless blue eyes caught in a forever still moment.

"how long were you here?" toushirou asks, red cheeks prominent and flushed, ivory hair moving with the wind as he watches the half-boy smile at the picture.

gintoki looks up, unruly silver hair resting on the curves of his ears and tickling his eyebrows, and red meets blue and suddenly the morning sky looks so lilac here at dawn. 

 "long enough to realise that i don't want to lose you again."

 

_taking up your mouth_

 

hijikata toushirou has noticed that underneath gintoki's silver armour, lays a broken self-loathing man who hates the way people look at him like he's never sinned. he has noticed that gintoki likes to cover his mouth as he smiles when he's in a room full of people, but underneath the crimson sheets he laughs with his arms around toushirou. he has noticed that gintoki is rather too entrancing and enticing at nine am in the morning with a mouthful of strawberry milk and lips that taste exactly the same, and that his eyes look restless when you watch him pre-show with his fingers tied in knots.

he walks along the runaway as a phantom, and many are not sure that the man walking down is even real with the way his lips are upturned into a coy smirk reminiscent to those of elves and pixies running along his veins and his thin wrists and collarbones have labels tattooed along them, reading " **do not break**." sometimes toushirou can't stand to come face to face with perfection when the mirror in his bathroom is cracked, but toushirou still kisses him because perfection was never one to define gintoki anyway. toushirou likes to run his lips along the cicatrices weaving through gintoki's back and gintoki likes that feeling when a wound heals every time toushirou smiles at him. sometimes gintoki likes to talk like his words are arrows and his voice falls in ripples of seductiveness when toushirou is sitting right next to him, thighs covered by hands that belong to the mysterious half-boy who believes he doesn't deserve to be loved. gintoki's shoulders are too broad and he likes to watch kids shows from the times where he had learned to grow up too fast. sakata gintoki is a living inconsistency and only when his lips meet with toushirou's he feels that he deserves to be loved and that's enough for him to feel _enough_.

and hijikata toushirou is still uncertain of what they are, but they don't need to define it when the two are both too complicated, too enchanting, too _intricate_ to be defined.

what he really knows is that he needs gintoki by his side, and gintoki needs him by his side too.

 

_so you breathe through your nose._

 

**_"toushirou, after i pass, be happy with someone else again."_ **

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> O M A K E
> 
> "you really think that pancakes with whipped cream is nice?"
> 
> "oh come on, it's better than having mayonnaise with it!"
> 
> "just let me try it, you dumbass."
> 
> "well- what do you think?"
> 
> toushirou smiles, wraps his fingers around gintoki's neck and says, "i think it's lovely," before slapping the whole plate of whipped cream against gintoki's cheek.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> the lyrics between segment breaks are from the first track in the 1975's debut album.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> anyway, this is my first gintama fic so any comments and feedback are much appreciated.


End file.
